The facilities of Daycare Roba and Daghemmet Roban are located in former business and office premises built in 1983, on all six floors of the building. Both daycare centres have their own indoor facilities in the building, and the top floor features staff facilities. The daycare centres replace Daghemmet Albert, Daycare Meripirtti at Hiekkarannantie 6, as well as the Pietarinkatu 14 sites and part of Daycare Kaisaniemi’s pavilion facilities.
Daycare centre activities began on Iso Roobertinkatu at the beginning of August. The facilities are designed for 240 children. Currently the Finnish side has 130 children and the Swedish side 63 children in total.
Despite the hustle and bustle of the inner city, the pedestrian street provides a safe environment at the entrance of the daycare centre. The large, sheltered courtyard is cosy and used exclusively by the daycare centre.
“The families whose children attend daycare here are used to urban life. They see the location in the city centre as a positive aspect, as the parents either work nearby or live in the city centre or its vicinity. For outdoor activities, the daycare groups utilise not only the courtyard, but also nearby public green areas, such as Sinebrychoff Park and the Johanneksenpuisto park, thus using the city as a learning environment,” comment Daycare Centre Managers Kaisa Viitanen and Lise-Lotte Ekberg-Tallqvist.
An exceptional site for a daycare centre
There are few facilities and properties suitable for daycare centre use in the inner city, but the number of children in the area is growing. Changing the purpose of a building and renovating it is often a better option than demolishing it, and the Iso Roba daycare centres are an excellent example of the flexibility of buildings.
The building is owned by Sponda Investment Properties A Oy, from which the City of Helsinki is leasing the premises. The main designer of the building is Architect Ilkka-Antti Hyvärinen from Trium Arkkitehdit Oy.
The project was designed in accordance with the requirements of the BREEAM environmental certificate, the application process for which has been started.
The design process was influenced by not only the needs of the daycare centres, but the exceptional location of the building as well. The Iso Roba daycare centres are exceptional in their extent in all of Helsinki. The complex is the largest daycare centre in the city, as well as one of the few that are located in a former office building.
Turning the office building into a daycare centre was made challenging by various official regulations and the City’s own design guidelines, which are stricter for daycare centres than for business or office buildings. Special attention was paid to personnel safety, indoor air quality, lighting, fire safety, sound dampening and accessibility.
“The City steered the design of the facilities by means of its own design guidelines for daycare centres. The office building was well suited for the space and group size requirements of the daycare centre, and aspects such as placing new ventilation pipes in the low rooms were made successful through skilful design.
The property has other users in addition to the daycare centre, and even the stairwell used by the daycare centre is used by other people as well, so the safety of the facilities was improved so that the daycare centre facilities can only be entered through access-controlled doors,” explains Project Manager Marjut Rantapuro from the City of Helsinki’s Urban Environment Division.
The staff of both daycare centres were actively involved in the construction contracting working group from the start. The facilities were designed to be flexible. The different floors of the daycare centres feature movable walls and furniture that the staff can use to easily assemble different play and learning environments. The majority of the rooms have designated themes – the daycare centre features facilities such as a building room, different atelier rooms for handicrafts and art, a nature room, a role playing room and a sensory room. In the future, the plan is to modify the themes in accordance with the children’s wishes.
